John Knowles, author of a separate peace, intentionally alluded his novel to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,Cain, Abel, and Jesus. Characters, places, and events correspond similarly to infamous story from Genesis. Various allusions can be seen in this story, such as Finny, Gene, the Devon School itself compared to the rest of the world, the summer period, winter period, and events associated with some of these. The story of Adam and Eve takes place in the Garden of Eden, a place of peace. Within the garden there was no such thing as evil. Similarly, in a separate peace, most people in Devon aren’t really concerned with the war, it doesn’t really affect them, it is almost like it doesn’t exist and this is why Finny proposes the idea that the war is not really going on. In the garden before they eat the apple, Adam and Eve are guiltless, like Gene before he shakes the tree to knock Finny off. Not only do the situations, end in both people losing their innocent ness, but …show more content…
This is similar to us humans sinning or doing something wrong, which hurts Jesus, who loves us. He presents a Christ-like figure during sports events, in which he is extremely humble. Constantly, he is winning sports games but constantly refuses to take credit for them. He even beats the school record for swimming and doesn’t say anything, “You can try it again and break it again. Tomorrow. We’ll get the coach in here, and all the official timekeepers and I’ll call up the Devonian to send a reporter and a photographer—he climbed out of the pool. I’m not going to do it again, he said quietly. Of course you are! No I just wanted to see if could do it. Now I know. But I don’t want to do it in public.”(Knowles, 1959) In addition, after learning that Gene made him fall out of the tree, Finny forgives him, like Jesus forgives
Have you ever read a book where one of the main characters was so envious of another? Well, here you have it. In John Knowles “A Separate Peace”, Gene is all for the jealous rage and resentful ways. Throughout the book, Mr. Knowles places the boys in a boarding school and sets the tale so that the reader knows all the focus is set upon Finny and Gene’s relationship. Speaking of relationships and Gene’s way, the storyline takes a turn and Finny actually ends up being almost physically pushed out of a tree. I say that shows a large characteristic of Gene. He is without a doubt, resentful towards Finny.
John Knowles writes a compelling realistic fiction about the lives of two teenage boys throughout the start of World War II in his novel A Separate Peace. Peter Yates the director of the movie plays the story out in a well organized theatrical manner. There are similarities and differences in these two works of art. However; there are also similarities.
At a young age everyone creates an enemy. Peace comes when this enemy leaves or has been destroyed. Everyone must fight, negotiate, and/or struggle with their enemy to be left with nothing but peace. Gene Forrester was the main character in the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles, which took place in the time of World War II. He made his enemy leave, through the death of his best friend Finny. As a result of fighting the wrong battle, Gene apologized to his friend Finny and found peace.
The literary analysis essay for A Separate Peace entitled Chapter 7: After the Fall notes that Gene’s brawl with Cliff Quackenbush occurs for two reasons: the first reason being that Gene was fighting to defend Finny, and the second reason being that Quackenbush is the antithesis of Finny. Cliff Quackenbush calls Gene a “maimed son-of-a-bitch”, since Gene holds a position on the team that is usually reserved for physically disabled students, and Gene reacts by hitting him in the face (Knowles, 79). At first, Gene remarks that he didn’t know why he reacted this way, then he says, “it was almost as though I were maimed. Then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me”, referring to Finny (Knowles, 79). Quackenbush is “the adult world of punitive authority personified”, his voice mature, his convictions militaristic (Chapter, 76). Quackenbush reminds Gene of the adult world and all of the things that Finny and Devon protected him from, such as war.
In the novels A Separate Peace and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time there are a number of themes. The books have so many similarities in them. All of the characters love and help each other get through things that are tough in their life. One of the problems that all of the characters face is being lost. This isn’t one of the themes that I chose, but I think it puts them together nicely. Most of the characters want to be put back on the right path in the story. By the end of the novels, they all achieved this goal. The three things that helped them do that were the friendships and sheltering that they had and the forgiveness they gave and received.
In John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace, the theme of loss of innocence is skillfully developed through setting, character, and symbols. This story simply details a young man's entering the adult world as all children do. Everyone suffers loss of innocence.
“I found it. I found a single sustaining thought. The thought was, You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. . . . I felt better. Yes, I sensed it like the sweat of relief when nausea passes away; I felt better. We were even after all, even in enmity. The deadly rivalry was on both sides after all.”
A Separate Peace is a coming-of-age novel about two boys at boarding school and their friendship during World War II. There are three significant scenes of violence that occur in the novel; however, the core of the plot is based upon one. The first and most poignant is the incident where Gene, the narrator, jiggles the tree branch while he and Phineas, his best friend, are preparing to jump, causing Phineas to fall and break his leg. The next scene of violence is when Quackenbush calls Gene a lame and Gene pushes him into the water. Lastly, Gene pushes Leper out of his chair while visiting him after he is accused of causing Phineas’ injury. All of these occurrences contribute to the overall meaning of the work.
The idea that man's relationship with good and evil is not predestined is a central idea in this novel. The conflict between good and evil is a universal battle. Many characters in the novel, East of Eden, struggle both internally and externally with Good versus evil.
“…It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart.”
In John Knowle’s, A Separate Peace, there is a transformation in all the key elements in the book, from the rivers to the tree to the seasons to the characters. The transformation is specifically seen in Leper, Gene, and Phineas. These three young men experience a change not just because of the transitions through adolescence. These changes also come about because of the war, the school, and an injury.
A Separate Peace is a coming of age novel in which Gene, the main character, revisits his high school and his traumatic teen years. When Gene was a teen-ager his best friend and roommate Phineas (Finny) was the star athlete of the school.
The clash between good and evil has been a prominent theme in literature. The Bible presents the conflict between good and evil in the story of Adam and Eve. Many authors use the scene in the Bible in which the snake taunts and tempts Adam and Eve to take a bite of the apple of knowledge to demonstrate the frailty of humankind. John Gardner provides these same biblical allusions of good and evil in his novel, Grendel.
In John Knowle’s A Separate Peace, symbols are used to develop and advance the themes of the novel. One theme is the lack of an awareness of the real world among the students who attend the Devon Academy. The war is a symbol of the "real world", from which the boys exclude themselves. It is as if the boys are in their own little world or bubble secluded from the outside world and everyone else. Along with their friends, Gene and Finny play games and joke about the war instead of taking it seriously and preparing for it. Finny organizes the Winter Carnival, invents the game of Blitz Ball, and encourages his friends to have a snowball fight. When Gene looks back on that day of the Winter Carnival, he says, "---it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace" (Knowles, 832). As he watches the snowball fight, Gene thinks to himself, "There they all were now, the cream of the school, the lights and leaders of the senior class, with their high IQs and expensive shoes, as Brinker had said, pasting each other with snowballs"(843).
Adam and Eve had a perfect Garden of Eden, until Eve ate the apple and contaminated the garden. In being tricked by the snake, Eve betrayed God’s word. Mankind has often betrayed others because of the darkness in their heart. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles uses Phineas as a sacrificial lamb to portray Gene’s savage side and demonstrate that peace can never be achieved at a worldwide level until man accepts the darkness in his own heart.